“On the commodity side, long positions in natural gas and crude oil provided profits, but prices for precious as well as base metals and agricultural commodities declined,” says Waksman. The Agricultural Traders Index was down 0.40% in March, and was the only losing managed futures strategy for the month.

After three months, all eight BarclayHedge CTA indices are in positive territory. The Currency Traders Index has gained 1.51%, Diversified Traders are up 1.42%, and Systematic Traders have gained 1.31%.

The Barclay BTOP50 Index, which measures performance of the largest CTAs, gained 0.77% in March, and is currently up 2.48% for the year.